Innes M. Keighren BSc (Hons), MSc, PhD, PGCert, FRGS, FHEA, FRHistS

I am a historical geographer with research interests in geography’s
disciplinary and discursive histories, in book history, and in the history of science.
My work has examined, among other topics, the history of polar science and exploration;
the origins of environmentalist thought in geography; eighteenth- and
nineteenth-century travel writing; the communication of scientific knowledge in text,
image, and speech; the popular and scholarly reception of scientific knowledge; and the
circulation and diffusion of ideas. My current book
project—provisionally entitled The forgotten radical: William Macintosh
and the transnational circulation of seditious print in the Age of
Revolution—focuses on the eighteenth-century Scottish travel writer William
Macintosh, author of Travels in Europe, Asia, and
Africa (1782).

Blurb

In eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain, books of travel and exploration were
much more than simply the printed experiences of intrepid authors. They were works of
both artistry and industry—products of the complex, and often contested,
relationships between authors and editors, publishers and printers. These books
captivated the reading public and played a vital role in creating new geographical
truths. In an age of global wonder and of expanding empires, there was no publisher
more renowned for its travel books than the House of John Murray.

Drawing on detailed examination of the John Murray Archive of manuscripts, images,
and the firm’s correspondence with its many authors—a list that included
such illustrious explorers and scientists as Charles Darwin and Charles Lyell, and
literary giants like Jane Austen, Lord Byron, and Sir Walter Scott—Travels
into print considers how journeys of exploration became published accounts and how
travelers sought to demonstrate the faithfulness of their written testimony and to
secure their personal credibility. This fascinating study in historical geography and
book history takes modern readers on a journey into the nature of exploration, the
production of authority in published travel narratives, and the creation of
geographical authorship—a journey bound together by the unifying force of a
world-leading publisher.

Endorsements

“The originality of the book’s focus lies in its attention to the whole
process of publishing, from the writer’s original notebooks through to the end
product and its marketing. It moves from the facts of travel and geographical
exploration to consider how the accounts of these travels appeared in print—a
journey that turns out to have been rich in complications. This kind of attention is
made possible by the uniquely full records that survive in the John Murray Archive.
In this sense, the book is a case study; but the issues raised are so wide-ranging
that it turns itself into a much more ambitious analysis. Each of the three authors
has clearly brought different strengths to the project, broadening and deepening the
book’s range. But they have worked together so effectively that the book reads
as if it had been written by a single author: there is only one voice. A triumph for
the virtues of collaboration and a novel, needed, and groundbreaking contribution,
this is a truly original and major work, arguably the most important yet to appear in
the burgeoning field of travel writing studies” — Peter Hulme, University
of Essex.

“No one did more to transform travel writing into one of the nineteenth
century’s most popular genres than the publishing firm of John Murray, and no
one has done more to reveal the significance of that project than the authors of this
important new book. Making meticulous use of the Murray archives, Keighren, Withers,
and Bell have written a rich and penetrating account of how, as they put it,
‘the world was put into words.’ Their study offers fresh insights into
the premises and practices of travel and exploration, the struggle to give
credibility to travelers’ tales, the highly mediated process by which travelers
became authors, the social and economic forces that shaped print culture, and much
more, making it a work that scholars in a range of disciplines will want to
read” — Dane Kennedy, George Washington University.

“Travels into print offers an original and nuanced approach to book
history that exposes the rich interdisciplinary nature of the field. While the work
claims neither to be a house history nor an exhaustive exploration of the Murray
Archive, its three authors interweave perspectives from historical geography, history
of science, art history, material culture, and literary studies to examine travel,
topography, and the book trade. In the process, they demonstrate the complex
technical, intellectual, political, cultural, and moral negotiations and
interventions that bring printed works into the public sphere. Written in a highly
engaging, accessible style, Travels into print gives a fascinating glimpse
into the multivariate worlds of travel and exploration narratives and how they have
been fashioned in and out of the imaginations of authors, publishers, and their
audiences” — Sydney Shep, Victoria University of Wellington.

Praise for the book

“Travels is a thoroughly researched and artfully crafted book that
substantially advances our knowledge of travel writing and exploration. With its deft
and admirably subtle blending of methodological insights and archival material, it
evidences the rewards to be gained from working at the intersection of historical
geography, book history, and the history of science. It is, moreover, a landmark
contribution to the emerging field of the geography of the book. It deserves to be
read widely by those interested in the history of travel and exploration, the history
of geography, and the history of the book.” — Dean Bond, Journal of
Historical Geography.

“John Murray’s prominence in the field permits wider conclusions to be
drawn about the history of publishing and the production and reception of travel
writing. The interdisciplinary nature of this treatment makes the work accessible and
relevant to scholars in many fields. Recommended.” — Hillary Corbett,
Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries.

“[An] impressive work of scholarship on the House of Murray.” —
Adriana Craciun, Writing Arctic disaster: authorship and exploration.

“[A] magisterial interpretation of the publishing process at the house of
Murray…a welcome addition to the library of anyone interested in the nexus of
exploration and travel, authorship, and bookmaking. Keighren et al. have
carefully documented in a most readable volume the complex process of transforming
words about the world into print.” — Steven L. Driever, Historical
Geography.

“[Travels into Print] is a fascinating account of how knowledge is
produced.” — Ronald H. Fritze, Terrae Incognitae: The Journal for the
History of Discoveries.

“Travels into Print provides a crucial textual backstory, as it were, to
more theoretically inflected studies of nineteenth-century travel writing, one that
sheds new light on the complex ways colonial encounters and narratives made the
journey into print…[the book] has much to offer scholars of nineteenth-century
literature, history, and print culture. Meticulously researched, the book also forms
a fine introduction to the interdisciplinary nature of travel studies and to the
current state of scholarship in the field.” — Christopher M. Keirstead,
Nineteenth-Century Contexts: An Interdisciplinary Journal.

“This is a work solidly based on extensive research in the John Murray
Archive…As is the custom with the University of Chicago Press, production
standards are of the highest and at a price much more favourable than is the norm for
British publishers. The coloured plates, and black and white illustrations in the
text are all carefully chosen to add to the narrative…Readers with an interest
in nineteenth-century publishing…will find much of interest.” —
Robert Laurie, The Library: The Transactions of the Bibliographical Society.

“This methodologically sophisticated study is a landmark in interdisciplinary
and multidisciplinary scholarship…the book offers a lucid account of the
scientific, political and cultural contexts in which John Murray’s travel
writers authored their narratives of non-European explorations. Historians of science
and geographers will find vital information about the ways travel and exploration
contributed to the emergence of modern science…Travels into Print [is]
an invaluable contribution to the fields of geography, history of science and history
of the book. It will be a benchmark against which the value of further
interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary studies will be measured.” —
Eleni Loukopoulou, The British Journal for the History of Science.

“Travels into Print is a fascinating incursion into the Murray archive.
With the sustained focus on travel and exploration texts, this book is particularly
useful in ‘disclosing’ (p.211) the complex ways in which explorer and
traveller figures, themselves discursive constructions, acquired publishing
identities as authoritative authors and readers whose texts operated as cultural
artefacts, corporately fashioned by publishing houses.” — Sandhya Patel,
Viatica.

“Travels into Print is an impressive work of scholarship. Its account of
how authority is negotiated in print will surely be a model for further studies, both
in travel writing and beyond. It comes highly recommended.” — Susan
Pickford, SHARP News.

“[A] significant interdisciplinary study that makes contributions not just to
the history of geographical exploration and of the book trade, but also to the
history of science, art, and cartography, as well as to popular culture, literary
studies, and theories of the meaning and reception of ideas…In summary, this
is a well-researched, in-depth analysis of a relevant and interesting subject. It is
recommended for those interested in historical geography, the history of books, or
the relation between popular culture and exploration.” — Beau
Riffenburgh, Polar Record.

“[A]stute and valuable…Though Travels in Print is concerned with
a specific genre of writing which appeared from one publishing house at a
well-defined moment in time, the intervention it makes is an important one to
remember for all students of authorship.” — Jasper Schelstraete,
Authorship.

“[A] major contribution to book history and one that is bound to interest
historians of science…The work benefits from the extraordinary archive of
letters, account books, and other documents once held at Albemarle Street but now
readily available at the National Library of Scotland. The skillful use of these
materials, in a remarkably seamless narrative by three leading authorities, makes it
possible to look behind the scenes of Victorian publishing to an unprecedented
degree.” — Jim Secord, Isis.

Blurb

The publication of Ellen Semple’s Influences of Geographic Environment
in 1911—a treatise on what would later be called environmental
determinism—coincided with the emergence of geography as an independent academic
discipline in North America and Britain. A controversial text written by one of
America’s first female professional geographers, it exerted an important but
varied influence on generations of geographers. Some considered it a monument to
Semple’s scholarship and erudition—a timely manifesto for a scientific
approach to human geography. For others, it was conceptually flawed. Accepted by some,
repudiated by others, Influences was lauded and criticized in almost equal
measure.

Innes M. Keighren examines the different reactions to Semple’s book. He
explains why Influences was encountered differently by different people, at
different times and in different places, and reveals why the book aroused the passions
it did. Attending to archival records, personal correspondence, published reviews,
provenance and marginalia, the author traces a geography of the book’s reception
and outlines the contribution geography can make to understanding the way knowledge and
ideas, in the guise of the printed text, are conceived, transmitted and received. The
result is a pioneering work that provides a wholesale re-visioning of the way in which
geographical knowledge is disseminated.

Praise for the book

“[R]esearchers working on the historical geographies of print media and their
audiences will surely applaud Keighren’s detailed description of how
Influences ‘travelled’” — Noel Castree, Annals of
the Association of American Geographers.

“As an easily read, scholarly text Keighren’s book is a valuable case
study of the circulation of knowledge” — Ron Johnston, Journal of
Historical Geography.

“[A] promising venture by an author from whose research we can expect to see
further innovative contributions in the years to come” — William A.
Koelsch, The Northeastern Geographer.

“[D]etailed in execution and refreshingly bold in design…at once an
addition to the literature, and a happy accomplishment much the product of diligence
and goodly judgement” — Geoffrey J. Martin, The Geographical
Review.

“I commend Keighren for his substantial and innovative study” —
Janice Monk, Environment and History.

“Must reading for history of geography and science scholars. Highly
recommended” — Leon Yacher, Choice: Current Reviews for Academic
Libraries.

Blurb

Given the exciting and innovative nature of current and recent collaboration in
historical geography, this volume reflects on the nature of the collaborative
process—its politics, practicalities, and promise. The collection’s ten
chapters explore what it means, both practically and intellectually, to work together
in the production of geographical knowledge. By drawing together the reflections of
students, academics, and partner organisations, this volume explores the benefits and
challenges of working collaboratively. In addition to being a showcase for current
collaborative undertakings, the volume also examines how productive relationships are
developed and managed, how the competing demands of the academic and public sector are
negotiated, and how geographical knowledges are communicated to, and informed by,
partner organisations.

Praise for the book

“Collaborative Geographies is…a celebratory text, and it
represents an important addition to the small body of literature that seeks to engage
with the idea of ‘collaboration’ and the related concepts of impact and
knowledge exchange” — Ealasaid Munro, Journal of Historical
Geography.

Keighren, Innes M., and Charles W. J. Withers.
“Questions of inscription and epistemology in British travelers’
accounts of early nineteenth-century South America”. Annals of the
Association of American Geographers 101, no. 6 (2011):
1331–46. [PDF]

Keighren, Innes M. “Breakfasting with William Morris
Davis: everyday episodes in the history of geography”. In Practising the
archive: reflections on methods and practice in historical geography,
Historical Geography Research Series No. 40, edited by Elizabeth A. Gagen, Hayden
Lorimer, and Alex Vasudevan, 47–55. London: Royal Geographical Society,
2007.

Keighren, Innes M. “Knowledge made human. Review of
Scholars in action: the practice of knowledge and the figure of the savant in
the 18th century, edited by André Holenstein, Hubert Steinke, and
Martin Stuber in collaboration with Philippe Rogger”. H-HistGeog, H-Net
Reviews (2014). [PDF]

Keighren, Innes M. “Turning the pages of science.
Review of Science in print: essays on the history of science and the culture
of print, edited by Rima D. Apple, Gregory J. Downey, and Stephen L.
Vaughn”. H-HistGeog, H-Net Reviews (2013). [PDF]

Keighren, Innes M. “Science: a very human endeavour.
Review of Never pure: historical studies of science as if it was produced by
people with bodies, situated in time, space, culture, and society, and struggling
for credibility and authority, by Steven Shapin”. H-HistGeog, H-Net
Reviews (2011). [PDF]

Keighren, Innes M. “Review of San Martín:
Argentine soldier, American hero, by John Lynch”. Bulletin of Latin
American Research 30, no. 2 (2011): 256–58. [PDF]

Keighren, Innes M. “Review of The passage to
Cosmos: Alexander von Humboldt and the shaping of America, by Laura Dassow
Walls and Alexander von Humboldt and the botanical exploration of the
Americas, by H. Walter Lack”. Journal of Historical Geography
36, no. 2 (2010): 234–35. [PDF]

Keighren, Innes M. “Revelations and revolutions in
nineteenth-century earth science. Review of Worlds before Adam: the
reconstruction of geohistory in the age of reform, by Martin J. S.
Rudwick”. H-HistGeog, H-Net Reviews (2009). [PDF]

Keighren, Innes M. “Writing the history of the world.
Review of Bursting the limits of time: the reconstruction of geohistory in the
age of revolution, by Martin J. S. Rudwick”. H-HistGeog, H-Net
Reviews (2006). [PDF]

Presentations

“Catechisms, grammars, and readers: towards a generic
history of geography textbooks”. Paper presented at the RGS-IBG Annual
International Conference, Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British
Geographers), London, 30 August–2 September 2016.

“William Macintosh’s Travels: colonial mobility
and the circulation of knowledge”. Paper presented at the 16th International
Conference of Historical Geographers, London, 5–10 July 2015.

“‘Consistent neither with candour nor truth’:
negotiating authorship and authority in William Macintosh’s Travels in Europe,
Asia, and Africa (1782)”. Paper presented at the 111th Annual Meeting of the
Association of American Geographers, Chicago, 21–25 April 2015.

“Circling the Society: women’s geographical frontiers
in Edwardian London”. Paper presented at the 110th Annual Meeting of the
Association of American Geographers, Tampa, 8–12 April 2014.

“Circling the Society: women’s geographical frontiers
in Edwardian London”. Paper presented at the RGS-IBG Annual International
Conference, Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers),
London, 28–30 August 2013.

“‘[D]aring absurdities, studied misrepresentations,
and abominable falsehoods’: the geographical writings of William Macintosh
(1738–c. 1809)”. Paper presented at the RGS-IBG Annual International
Conference, Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers),
London, 31 August–2 September 2011.

“‘Written amid hurry and confusion’: Richard
Wilbraham’s inscriptive practices as regimen and comfort”. Paper presented
at the 107th Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, Seattle,
12–16 April 2011.

“Geologists on tour: representing the scenic and scientific
gaze of earth scientists”. Paper presented at the RGS-IBG Annual International
Conference, Manchester, 26–28 August 2009.

“Journeys through print: John Murray and nineteenth-century
travel writing”. Paper presented at ‘Tradition & Innovation’, the
17th annual conference of the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and
Publishing, University of St Michael’s College, University of Toronto,
23–26 June 2009.

“Accidental geographers: nineteenth-century British
travellers in South America”. Paper presented at the 105th Annual Meeting of the
Association of American Geographers, Las Vegas, Nevada. 22–27 March 2009.

“The ‘bogey-lady of a slightly silly concept’:
rethinking the legacy of Ellen Churchill Semple”. Paper presented at the 103rd
Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, San Francisco, California.
17–21 April 2007.

“Bringing geography to the book: charting the reception of
Influences of geographic environment”. Paper presented at the RGS-IBG
Annual International Conference, Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of
British Geographers), London. 30 August–1 September 2006.

“Bringing geography to the book: charting the reception of
Influences of geographic environment”. Paper presented at the 102nd Annual
Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, Chicago, Illinois. 7–11 March
2006.

“Miss Semple’s Influences: a study in the
historical geography of authorship, publishing, and reading”. Paper presented at
‘Material Cultures and the Creation of Knowledge’, Centre for the History
of the Book, University of Edinburgh. 22–24 July 2005.

“Miss Semple’s Influences: a study in the
historical geography of authorship, publishing, and reading”. Paper presented at
‘Navigating Texts and Contexts’, the 13th annual conference of the Society
for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing, Dalhousie University, Halifax,
Nova Scotia. 14–17 July 2005.

“Ideas in motion: bodies, books, and the circulation of
knowledge”. Paper presented at ‘Géographies en Mouvements’, a
two-day workshop organised by the Programme Doctoral de Géographie of the
Conférence Universitaire de Suisse Occidentale, Montezillon, Switzerland
6–7 February 2017.

“Fragments, mother lodes, and the gaps that remain:
recuperating the forgotten geographies of William Macintosh”. Address to the
Cultural and Historical Geography Research Group seminar series, School of Geography,
University of Nottingham, 7 December 2016.

“Fragments, mother lodes, and the gaps that remain:
recuperating the forgotten geographies of William Macintosh”. Address to the
Human Geography Research Group seminar series, School of Geographical and Earth
Sciences, University of Glasgow, 30 March 2016.

“Books on the move: travellers’ libraries and
practices of en-route reading in the nineteenth century”. Paper presented at
‘Texts in Place/Place in Texts’, a one-day symposium forming part of
‘Cultural Participation in Place’, a Humanities and Arts Research Centre
Fellowship, Royal Holloway, University of London, 21 May 2015.

“The plain and unvarnished truth: authorship, authority, and
the search for credibility in nineteenth-century travel writing”. Address to the
Society, Space and Culture seminar series, School of Geography, Archaeology and
Palaeoecology, Queen’s University Belfast, 19 February 2015.

“Travels in a publisher’s archive: John Murray and
nineteenth-century travel publishing”. Address to the Archives and Texts seminar
series, Department of English Literature and Department of Modern Languages and
European Studies, University of Reading, 27 October 2014.

“Beyond belief: knowing the world through books of travel,
1778–1859”. Address to the London Group of Historical Geographers, Senate
House, University of London, 1 October 2013.

“‘What use is it to tell [the] truth if it looks like
a fib?’: the search for credibility in nineteenth-century travel writing”.
Address to the Trinity College Geography Society, University of Cambridge, 9 May
2013.

“Travel as text: working with a publisher’s
archive”. Paper presented at ‘Silk Roads II: Objects, Collections, and
Exhibitions’, a workshop of the AHRC Research Network ‘Re-Enacting the Silk
Road: Transnational Encounters for the 21st Century’, Royal Geographical Society
(with the Institute of British Geographers), London, 7 February 2013.

“Circulating seditious knowledge: the ‘daring
absurdities, studied misrepresentations, and abominable falsehoods’ of William
Macintosh”. Address to the Human Geography seminar series, School of Geographical
Sciences, University of Bristol, 24 January 2012.

“Exploring the world from Albemarle Street: reading John
Murray’s books of travel”. Address to the National Library of Scotland,
Edinburgh, 29 March 2010.

“Journeys through print: John Murray and the extraordinary
travels of Maria Graham”. Address to the West Port Book Festival, Edinburgh, 15
August 2009.

“Inscription, observation, and trust: understanding British
travellers’ accounts of nineteenth-century South America”. Address to the
Human Geography Research Group / Scotland’s Transatlantic Relations Project,
Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Edinburgh, 16 February
2009.

“Humboldt’s disciples or a capitalist vanguard? The
written accounts of nineteenth-century British travellers to South America”.
Paper presented at ‘Spaces for, and of Historical Geography’, Institute of
Geography, University of Edinburgh. 6 November 2008.

“‘Metaphysics in muslin’: Maria Graham, John
Murray, and travels in nineteenth-century South America”. Address to the
Edinburgh Book History Seminar. 31 October 2008.

“Postgraduate voice”. Paper presented at
‘Practising Historical Geography’, the 10th annual postgraduate meeting of
the Historical Geography Research Group, School of Geographical Sciences, University of
Bristol. 2 November 2005.

“Reviewing Miss Semple’s Influences: a
historical geography of reception”. Address to the Department of Geography,
University of Kentucky. 29 April 2005.